Meera, Australia

Meera is a junior majoring in mechanical engineering and mathematics, with a minor in computer science. During summer and fall 2012, the President’s Scholar and member of the University Honors Program is participating in an IES Abroad program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney through SMU Abroad. Since arriving in Australia, she has gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, visited the Blue Mountains, gone zip-lining in the Daintree Rainforest and explored Sydney’s many markets.

The past few weeks have been particularly busy. The semester is coming to a close, so I have been working on my final rounds of tests and papers before final exams.

However, amidst all the studying, I have had the opportunity to get out a few times. Recently, some friends and I went to Royal Randwick to see the Sunday horse races. The facilities looked exactly like something out of a movie; there were even people wearing huge decorative hats! I did not know anything about horse racing, but it was definitely fun to watch those who did.

I am taking a class on Aboriginal Sydney. Last week, I had to write a report on Aboriginal engraving in the Sydney area. The site my group chose was near Bondi, which is where the show Bondi Rescue is filmed. It was a little hard to get to our site, since it was located in the middle of a golf course. Eventually we found the engravings. They were huge figures of animals and people grooved into an exposed rock overlooking the ocean. I had no idea they were so large! A few were several feet long. Many of the engravings were overlapped.

Last weekend, I heard about a social sailing event hosted by a few UNSW sailors. I went out to sail with them on the harbor and had a great time. Toward the end of the day, the wind really started to pick up, which made for some great sailing. I have been a sailor all my life, so the chance to sail in Sydney was very special. Afterward, I went to an Aussie style barbeque with the people I had been sailing with. They invited me to attend a race practice next weekend … I can’t wait!